My Norwich Union endowment from April 1986 matured in early November at a little more than £28,000. This should have paid off my £27,000 Abbey mortgage and left me a small surplus.

But NU refuses to hand over the proceeds, claiming that a firm called TMC Financial has a prior claim on the policy.

I have never heard of TMC but NU says it is linked to Citibank and it must relinquish all claims before I can get my money. I have tried to contact Citibank as well as NU but nothing works – I have received several NU promises but no cash. AB, Perthshire

Back in 1986, it was common for lenders to take an "assignment" over endowments to ensure the proceeds were used to pay off the mortgage.

But no one at NU could explain why TMC Financial – presumably the broker that sold the policy to your ex-spouse – should have any hold over your money. Nor could NU spell out to Capital Letters the relationship, if any, between TMC and Citibank.

NU first apologised to you in an undated letter in early February when it sent £100 in M&S vouchers. But nothing happened. You were told to contact Citibank for a letter to say it had no interest in your policy, but not informed how or why you should. NU had failed to achieve this so why would you have done better?

You are still paying Abbey which, unsurprisingly, is charging interest averaging more than £100 a month.

When Capital Letters intervened, Citibank moved into action. It said it had never heard of TMC, nor did it have any claim on your policy, even if NU stated there was an assignment on its file. Charitably, this has now been put down to "human error".

Norwich Union is sending you £600 to cover the extra interest paid to Abbey. As a gesture for your hassles and time involved, it will apologise and send you a further £200, making a total of £900 compensation.

Why does Everyone fail to find my cash?

I have been trying for months to get £612.56 that was supposed to be paid from my HSBC account to Bhs Mastercard­ via electronic banking but, instead, it went to GE Money.

GE responds to some of my attempts­ to recover my money but the promised cheques or bank transfers never seem to arrive. HSBC is no help – all it ever does is cite "data protection".­ Please help. EH, Bedfordshire

The initial error occurred because you wanted to pay your new Bhs Mastercard bill. You found the Bhs Everyone Mastercard on the HSBC drop-down menu and assumed - unsurprisingly - it was the same.

It was not. The Everyone card, no longer available, came from GE Money while the replacement card is part of the Barclaycard stable.

So when your HSBC cash hit GE Money, it could not allocate it. It was sent back to HSBC. The bank then returned it to GE on a further three occasions until it ended in a suspense account. Why the banks could not have automatically redirected your money to the new card operator is unclear.

GE concedes it should have been pro-active and faster. It will now send you £612.56 as a cheque plus £50 compensation­ for the inconvenience.

Landbank firm claims your advice is wrong

I wrote to you in January following an unsolicited call by Consolidated Land UK (CLUK). It promised me "explosive growth" if I invested in land without planning permission.

You replied that this was landbanking where, so far, the only winners have been the firms promoting this, rather than investors. You also wrote that Companies House has a "proposal to strike off" against this firm, as it had failed to send in statutory filings.

I thought that was the end of the matter. But CLUK has now called me again, saying your version was untrue.

What is going on? MS, Middlesex

Whatever CLUK claims, there remains a Companies House proposal to strike it off – what is amazing is, the firm that is now one year behind with its accounts and nearly two years overdue with its annual return, should still be accorded limited company status.

Capital Letters spoke to CLUK employee Richard Hamilton. He told me of a government plan to build 50,000 homes in Middlesex alone – which must be news to the people that live there. He also said "70% of the top rich either own land, or make money from land", citing the Duke of Westminster.

When he was informed this was meaningless – after all, 70% of the not-very-rich either own, or have made money from property, while the Duke of Westminster achieved his wealth over centuries, Hamilton accused me of "being up myself" before terminating the call.

Held responsible as my brother's keeper

My brother left his home four years ago to go travelling. His mail was diverted­ ­to my address for a year. He collected it in 2006 and I have never seen him again. Since then, he has run up huge credit card debts which, it seems, he has no intention of paying.

But because some creditors have my address, they keep sending me demands­ for his debts. What can I do? KT, Derbyshire

Debt collectors chasing the wrong targets make up a fair slice of Capital Letters' complaints. Most have no idea of the real debtor – either they have a very common name, or a very rare one, which debt-chasers seize upon.

But debt collecting is lucrative – collectors­ often buy debts for between 0.5p and 10p in the pound, so they can afford to waste time and money chasing people, so long as they manage to get paid by a few.

In this case, it is amazing just how much lenders were willing to give your brother. Barclaycard, for instance, handed over a massive £20,443, before passing it on to Aktiv Kapital UK which buys up delinquent debts. Aktiv uses BPO Collections to collect the money.

But you are not your brother's keeper, and you have no legal responsibility to do anything. You could, however, write once to each collector telling them your brother has gone away and that if there is any continuation of contact, you will complain to Trading Standards under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This could result in the collector losing its credit licence.

Simple Solar burns out but beware SPWEC

Simple Solar, a Rochdale company which advertised solar panels in the Guardian and other newspapers, has given undertakings under the Enterprise Act to treat customers fairly after action by Rochdale council. Purchasers paid deposits of up to £1,500 for installations which never took place.

Sole director John Hallisey, 32, has agreed to stop trading illegally, and to remove misleading information from its website including a reference to a 20-year guarantee. He says he will refund all those who have lost money – Rochdale council expects more victims to come forward with complaints now its case has concluded.

Hallisey set up Simple Solar last July as the sole director – there is a proposal to strike the company off the register of limited firms. On 14 January, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint that the firm could not substantiate claims of "hotter water" and "improved water pressure".

On 16 January, Hallisey set up SPWEC­ Ltd from the same Rochdale address, as sole director. Its website says, "we are a totally new and exciting company", and claims it can "eliminate the cost of heating your home".

It also says companies have "used people's naivety of the industry to sell products at inflated prices".